the stars fell out of the sky
by i set my sims on fire
Summary: He makes you feel a little more human - Lucy/Lysander.


**Warning: this fic contains mentions of an eating disorder, please don't read if you might be triggered.**

Also, I apologize in advance, because I really don't know what's going on in this fic, as I wrote it at 2am while half-asleep. So if it makes no sense, I'm sorry and that's why c:

(If you couldn't tell, the o signs are in the present, while the x signs are Lucy's thoughts at other times. I don't know either.)

* * *

the stars fell out of the sky

o

In the middle of the night, when the wind is at it's worst and the cold is sending shivers down your spine, your hair whipping against your cheeks, he takes your hand in his and he squeezes it gently. A simple gesture, so simple, just skin gently brushing against skin and you don't utter a single word as his fingers grip yours tightly.

You feel a little more human.

x

You're beautiful, right?

Aren't you beautiful, with strawberry blonde curls coiling down your back, brushing against your neck and curtaining your face, hiding those little blue diamonds from the rest of the world. You're beautiful, aren't you?

With shaking hands and your fingers gripped tightly around a pair of scissors, you raise them upwards and suddenly, blonde waves are falling to the floor in wisps, long and soft and honey-coloured, and you can only stare.

And when you look in the mirror, gone is the waist-length cascade of blonde beauty, instead just sad, lonely locks, framing your heart-shaped face, jagged as they reach an abrupt end at your shoulders. You're seeing yourself as you really are, right now, protruding hip bones and all. Your paper-white skin clings to your bones like a layer of glue and your veins are too bright and too sapphire and they stand out too much.

All you can think about is the blood running through them. The blood lying underneath the veil of skin, scarlet to taint the white, perfectly.

o

When you glance up at the sky it's bathed in midnight blue, stars scattered and glittering and the moonlight reflecting onto his pale face, and he gives you a sad attempt of a smile.

He is your crescent moon. Your sky and your sun and every single glimmering star; and yet, you are his down-fall. You'll be the death of him, he often says, and it's often accompanied by a little smile and a light in his eyes. But the light dulls down a little more every day and it's meant to be a joke but somehow it isn't anymore.

He is your hero, and you are his villain. He is reminiscent of the flowers in spring, or a new-born baby rabbit, innocence, a post-card blue sky and the sound of laughter drifting in through an open window. You're corrupting that.

Lucy and Lysander, a match made in heaven. But more like hell. A few years ago you could have worked, when you were young, when the sleepless nights were due to staying up until the early hours of morning, a magenta 5am skylight, laughing the exhaustion away with your dorm-mates, and stuffing too many chocolate frogs into your mouth.

Not now, when the deep purple rings that fiercely underline your eyes represent an unshakable anxiety and a string of loosely tied together bad dreams.

x

Nothing goes back to normal, you're barely getting better and, oh, don't you know it.

Eighteen years old; fresh out of Hogwarts, fresh out of school. You've got the world at your feet, but how can you take those first few babysteps into the big bad universe of jobs and careers and a life outside the security you've always known? How can you do that when you're paralyzed? You can't seem to find your feet.

And so you live with your father, because it's easier, because he's out the door before you've woken up and returns in the evening, and you can pretend you've been out- job-hunting, laughing, eating, breathing, _living_, instead of having the world witness you fall apart.

Molly drops by. You don't know why she bothers but something tells you she's checking up on you.

_Is Dad here?_ No. The same answer every day. You give her Percy's working hours flatly. She returns again the day after. She's checking up on you, but why? She hates you, remember? Hate, hate, hate. It's all you know these days. Hate.

The word is ugly, you think, as you step in the shower, and the tiny droplets of ice-cold water splash furiously against your skin, littering the frail mess with goosebumps and you shiver, until the water boils and you're scolded, but too numb to care.

o

You don't know why he's brought you here, and you don't think to ask but he tells you anyway. He always knows what's on your mind, and it's nothing to do with occlumency. It's to do with the way he traces patterns into the palm of your hands, the way you rarely say a word, and the secretive smiles, or passage into your mind that you occasionally bare to just him, and nobody else.

'My mum used to bring me here,' he says, and he's not looking at you anymore. 'Me and my brother, and dad, too. Mum found it. It's where she used to come, to think. After the war.'

You don't need to say a word, so you don't.

'I always liked it here,' he continues. 'It's nice. Peaceful. Especially now, when it's dark. We came camping here a few times, sleeping under the stars in the summer. It was- nice. Have you ever been camping?'

'Once,' you say, and you want to channel all your repressed emotions and unspoken thoughts into this one sentence, to make it magical and poetic, to make it seem like it _means_ something, even if it doesn't. You desperately want to string your words together into the most perfect lovesong, and you search for poetry in amongst your feelings, but you don't find anything, it all seems to have faded away. 'But mum and dad kept arguing, and it rained, and the tent got wet and Molly kept, like, you know, stealing all the blankets, so I pulled her hair,' you pause. This was not what you had in mind. 'We ended up apparating home at three in the morning.'

'Oh,' Lysander says.

There's nothing more for you to say.

x

Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl, with long blonde curls tinted with strawberries, and she had the loveliest crystals for eyes and rose-red daintily spread across her cheeks, and a laugh that could be heard a mile away.

That girl was you.

And you were happy, really. You were. You miss that feeling.

You miss the sound of laughter bubbling around you, you miss the breathlessness, the excitement, the enthusiasm. You miss every inch of yourself when you look back to who you used to be. And now, you stand, and you look at yourself in the full-length mirror in your sister's old bedroom.

Messily cut blonde hair, and not crystals, but sad, lonely orbs that look like they might have shined once, but not anymore. Pale skin. Paper skin. Frail bones. An emaciated face, ribs that stick out and glare at you, as if they're screaming _what have you done to yourself, Lucy_? You rather think that an answer is needed to the questions whirling around your head, but try as you might, you can't find one.

You sat on a throne and wore gems threaded between silver string around your neck, a crown made from sapphires and ruby, and a silken dress woven from rose petals. You were a princess. The world was at your feet.

And now the world threatens to eat you alive. Your crown is lost among the ashes of a burnt-down castle, and the pretty dress has been thrown down into the gutter, taking it's place among cigarette butts and pollution and a stranger's drink-induced vomit.

o

Lysander kisses you in the dead of night, just as the rain begins to fall, and you can feel the blood running through your veins again. Your heart is beating.

Somewhere in your mind, behind the haunted eyes and the emaciated face of a girl a thousand times lost, a little princess with golden hair, is searching for her crown.

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